Email Deliverability Tips  

Email Deliverability Tips   by Tom Kulzer

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes

is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering.

Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by

as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

- Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have

actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the

battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called

confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the

attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding

the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying

that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and

requested to subscribe.

- Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their "real" or

"primary" email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo

or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and

typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

- List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when

sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent

error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list.

ISP's track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will

block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed

subscriber mailboxes.

- Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple

columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and

is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is

also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email

and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber.com

shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time

and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it

is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also

called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

- Content

Many ISP's filter based on the content that appears within the

message text.

- Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before

allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have

used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in

your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

- Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting

messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as

medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do

need to use words that might be filtered, don't attempt to obfuscate

words with extra characters or odd spelling, you'll just make your

messages appear more spam like.

- Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use

images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking

technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to

disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image

content.

- Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru

the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of

attached documents. It's often better to link to files via a

website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the

overall message size.

- CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules

regarding the delivery of email. It's important you have your legal

counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The

two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address

listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link

that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future

messages.

- Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP's as a way to vet

email senders regarding their email practices and policies.

Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent

filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php

http://www.bondedsender.com

http://www.habeas.com

- Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP's and email providers is essential in letting

them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large

providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs

and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as

long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your

opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is

delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable

you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group

can go a long way to reaching that goal.